A Match Made In Heaven
by Lone Butterfly
Summary: A conversation at the Pearly Gates between one who is slightly dead, one who is very dead, and the ArchAngel Gabriel. [Warning: Christian Themes abound!]


_**A Match Made in Heaven**_

_**A/N: Warning! Humorous Christian references abound in this story. If Christianity offends you, this story will also.**_

* * *

"I'm not going in."

"You have to, Miss Granger, it's the rules."

"I'm not dead. Therefore, I am not entering."

"Miss Granger, as I've already explained, you _are_ dead. Your friends are preparing for your Memorial Service as we speak."

"Then let me go back as a ghost – there are plenty of things I haven't done yet!"

"You don't qualify for returning as a ghost, Miss Granger, now _please_ step through the gate."

"This is ridiculous, I refuse to listen to another word from you. If you can't help me, then go find me someone who can. I absolutely will not be crossing that threshold."

The tall blond lowered his shining face into his hands and growled. Hermione watched with detached interest as his huge wings clenched closer to his body.

"You seem a bit tense."

"Miss Granger," the being said, his voice frosty with a thin veil of politeness. "I am the Arch-Angel Gabriel, third-in-command of all of Heaven, and messenger for the High and Holy One since the dawn of time. There is no one with greater authority who can help you, because the High and Holy One is a bit preoccupied right now – _so please step through the gate_."

"Mr. Gabriel, while I do appreciate the time you have taken to try and explain the error of my death, I assure you, I'm feeling quite fine and would like to return to my friends, in whichever way is necessary."

Looking thoroughly aggrieved, he proceeded to chant "I am not Lucifer, I am a _good_ angel" repeatedly while squeezing and relaxing his fists.

"Miss Grang-"

"If it isn't the know-it-all!" A new voice came from inside the huge stone archway. "I would have thought you might have known to move before being hit by a killing curse. Who did you bring with you today? Minerva? The feisty Nymphadora?"

Hermione blinked twice, a rather owlish look gracing her features, as she stared into the eyes of her very dead – and young looking – ex-Potions Professor.

"Professor Snape?"

"Ah – good day Severus! I see you received your scroll," Gabriel said, gleefully.

"You're in heaven?" Hermione asked, still in a daze.

"Of course I'm in heaven, Miss Granger – where did you expect me to be?" Then, giving her no time to answer, Severus turned on his heel to face the archangel – who at this point was sporting a Slytherin grin. "Would you care to explain yourself, _sir_?"

"Come now, Severus, you must know by now that your intimidation doesn't work on me. I believe you know exactly what the scroll means." He smoothed the tip of his wings, laying the ruffled feathers down, while continuing. "In fact, now that you are here, I shall be going. There's a few more to greet this week on this side of Heaven. I leave Miss Hermione Jane Granger in your very capable hands."

Severus scowled as Gabriel escaped, watching the receding figure with a look of frustration and resignation, before turning and motioning through the gate at Hermione.

"Stop gapping like a fish and come on through, Miss Granger. There's plenty to see and do on this side of the gate and I haven't got all day."

"Oh, but you see, Professor, there's been some sort of awful mistake and as I was trying to explain to the very nice angel, I'm not really dead. And I simply must get back to Harry and Ron," she earnestly tried to explain, her eagerness pushing aside any rational thought.

"Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley have just finished your Memorial Service – "

"The angel said a moment ago they were planning the Memorial Service," she narrowed her eyes and searched him for signs of subterfuge.

"Life flies when you're having fun, Miss Granger."

"I thought we were dead."

"In a manner of speaking we are. It's Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley's lives that are flying. Ours is standing still – because you won't come through the gate."

"What does the scroll mean?" She gestured at the tightly rolled piece of parchment Severus was holding in one hand.

"Nothing," he answered, tucking into his back pocket. "Come through the gate."

"How did you get to Heaven?" Hermione forged on, determined to have at least one question answered.

"The same way you did, Miss Granger, by having a slightly devout Anglican parent who drug me to church enough for the learning to sink in. My father may have been an abusive drunk, but he never took a sip on Sundays. It was the only day my mother willingly put down her wand and went out in public with him. Love will make you do funny things."

"Why did you come to the gate to greet me? Why not the Headmaster?"

"I am not going to stand here and answer your questions, Merlin knows that you could go on forever. Come inside and I will take all the time you want to address your concerns."

"But that's my point, Professor, _why you_?"

"Because I'm the one who received the scroll," he said, resigned to the conversation. He leaned up against the large stone pillar, careful not to brush against the silver gate that was swung open.

"But what does the scroll mean?"

"Miss Granger, why do you wish to return to your prior plane of existence?"

She looked startled at his question, but took her time answering.

"I suppose I want to be there for Harry and Ron and finish living. It simply doesn't seem fair that I gave up my childhood to fight in a war and I am denied the rewards of peace."

"Did you really expect to marry Mr. Weasley? And to live happily ever after surrounded by your friends and family?"

"Well, no, not exactly," she blushed faintly. "I'm not stupid, Professor. I have been aware of Luna's crush on Ron and his reciprocal feelings for months. But Harry and Ginny were to be married! I would have liked to be there for that. I would have gone back to school and obtained a good job – maybe even in research. I held no illusions about being married myself, Ron always said I was _mental_. But I miss my friends, sir."

She stressed the last word, much the way Ron had done for seven years, and privately wondered at the odd look that crossed Professor Snape's face. They stood staring at each other for a moment, before he spoke.

"Harry and Ginny will name their first daughter after you. Hermione Grace is to be born in less than three years."

"How do you know?" She asked, surprised at not only his knowledge, but the fact he would share it with her.

"Look at yourself, Miss Granger. You don't belong there anymore."

He pulled back his long white sleeve and pulled out what Hermione could only imagine to be a wand.

"It's solid granite, twelve inches with a rosemary core. Our wands here are made of stone and plants." He smirked internally as she leaned closer, almost crossing over simply because of her desire to unearth the unknown. She stepped back when he began moving his wrist and speaking in Latin. A mirror formed out of the air and hovered next to her.

"Look at your reflection," he coaxed softly, watching as she turned slowly.

She let out a little gasp, her hands flying up to her curly brown hair. It was still there in abundance, but was tucked tightly in a bun at the base of her neck, wispy strands dancing around her forehead and ears. She was wearing a set of deep burgundy robes, silver threads weaving in and out of the seams and pooling at the bottom like a glassy sea. Underneath a soft ivory satin gown hung on her body as if it was made for her and her alone. But it was when she looked at her face that she truly began to stare in wonder.

Hermione knew she wasn't a traditional beauty, like Lavender Brown. Or a fiery girl who drove men crazy, like Ginny. But her face looked older, lacking the childhood softness or the teenage blemishes that she had seen when she last washed her face. She traced a finger down her nose and swept it up her cheekbone, marveling at her exquisite skin and bright eyes.

"I'm… I'm… "

"Between thirty and thirty-five. Past your painful-awkward years, but before your body begins to fail you. Everyone here is the same age. You'll find that the most striking surprises are when you meet people like Albus or Sirius Black. People who you never knew at that age."

"Sirius is here?" She asked. "You hate Sirius."

"Hate doesn't exist this side of the gate," Severus corrected. "Please don't misunderstand me, Miss Granger, Sirius Black and I will never be friends. We are acquaintances who tolerate each other, because we are both willing to follow the rules of this place in order to reap the rewards. Albus knows better than to invite us both to the same night of Poker."

"You play Poker in Heaven?"

"What did you expect?" He countered. "That we would all sit around singing all day long?"

"I can't say I've spent a great deal of my time thinking about what I would do once I got here, because I didn't expect it to be so soon."

"There is something Miss Granger didn't investigate? Were you so certain that you would survive the War?"

"I wasn't certain of _anything_, Professor, especially not after you died."

"And what do you know of how I died?" He flicked his wrist and the mirror dissipated into thin air.

"Draco came back to Hogwarts after Ginny had been captured, surely you know that. Luna found him laying wounded and passed out on the edge of the Forbidden Forest and brought him into the castle – she and Harry had a right bloody row about it. Draco woke up in the middle and started babbling about how you had saved Ginny, and where she was hidden, and how Voldemort had cursed you to death, because of it. He said you had given up, because you knew Harry would win and couldn't stand to live with yourself."

"We don't know everything, here, Miss Granger," Severus answered, sighing. "They keep enough from us so that we never get tired of talking to one another. I'm sure you'll have plenty of stories to tell me of the Final Battle. I only knew that Mr. Malfoy and Miss Weasley were both safe."

"Will we be spending much time together, Professor?" Hermione asked, searchingly.

"Miss Granger, do you believe Potter and Miss Weasley to be soul mates? Or Mr. Weasley and Miss Lovegood?"

"That's a rather odd query, sir," she thought for a moment, before continuing. "I don't know if I would say Harry and Ginny were soul mates. They both fulfill a need in the other. Ginny wants to be a mother, and Harry wants a family, so they'll be perfect for each other. I do think Ron and Luna are – truly she's the only person I've ever met that could love Ron exactly for himself."

"Don't you think it's a little odd that God would expect us to find the one person that is perfect for us out of the billions who have inhabited and will inhabit the earth within one lifetime? Usually, socially we are constrained to less than three years of age surrounding our own?"

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

"I'm saying, perhaps Potter's soul mate is a woman who was born two hundred years ago – a woman he will meet once he arrives. As will Miss Weasley. Earthly relationships pale in comparison to even the friendships that are in heaven. This is eternity, Miss Granger, and this is where we reside with our soul mates, moving at a pace we set ourselves. Albus was introduced to a wonderful Indian witch from the early Seventeenth Century. It's truly an amazing process."

"How do we find our soul mates?" Hermione asked, a bit eagerly.

"Heaven lets us know when they arrive, if they aren't already here when we do."

"How?" She asked again, "how do they let us know? Do we get to live with them? Will they just accept us for who we are?"

He stood silently in front of her, his wand carefully replaced in its holster and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Oh," she finally said, her voice blank of emotion. "I see."

"Do you, Miss Granger?"

"I don't suppose you can ask for a reprieve?"

"I would certainly like to see _you_ explain to God that He made a mistake. Perhaps you can bounce around and wave your arm as you did when you were a First Year."

"You can't truly believe _we_ are soul mates!"

"I believe in being the worst man I could be, and in the total forgiveness of my God. I believe in the hate that consumed me as fully as I believe in the love that saved me." He barely took a breathe before soldiering on with his obviously rehearsed speech. "I believe that I play Poker every seven days with the man I killed and that twice a week I practice golf with a Muggle American named Howard Wheeler, who enjoys puttering around in my Potion's Lab afterwards. I believe that I can coexist with Black and that I will never be finished reading the books in the libraries – "

"There are libraries?" Her faint voice broke in.

"Hundreds of them, Miss Granger," he answered, reverently. "Manuscripts from the beginning of time that don't even exist on earth anymore."

"And the Headmaster is here?"

"If I had known for sure it would be you, I would have brought him along."

"You didn't know it was me." She stated accusingly, "you asked for Professor McGonagall and Tonks."

"Minerva would have bored me to death, and Nymphadora would have driven me crazy," he said. "Albus thought it would be you."

"He did?"

"He told me once, before we died, that if we truly did find soul mates in heaven, that you would be the only person to put up with my sarcastic nature and desire to spend most of my time reading."

"Are you still allowed to be sarcastic? What happens when Harry and Ron arrive?"

"Then they will attend Black's Poker night, mine is rather full anyway."

"And us? What happens to us?"

"Nothing immediately. When you cross through the gates and into heaven we will go first and have you fitted for a wand. Then, if you like, we can have lunch with Albus and you can meet his soul mate, before we head to our home – it's a large home with two bedrooms," he added hastily.

"And the libraries?"

"We can visit the first library before we visit Albus!" Severus said, excitement creeping into his voice. He reached his hand out, his fingertips brushing against an unseen barrier that Hermione could feel when she took a step closer to him.

"And us?" She quietly repeated, laying her hand in his as she carefully slipped through the gate, her body visible relaxing as his tensed. "What happens to us?"

"Eventually we fall in love, Miss Granger," his words were barely a whisper. Cautiously he stretched his other arm out and tentatively ran his thumb over her cheek. "But that can wait."

They stood silently, staring at one another in an attempt to come to terms with their future roles. Hermione found it easier than she had thought to imagine herself with the Professor forever, and that the idea was actually rather tantalizing. Her musings were broken when Snape spoke.

"Are you ready, Miss Gra-"

"Hermione," she corrected.

"Severus," he answered.

"Severus," she echoed politely, "will you please take me to the Wand shop? Then to see the Headmaster?"

"It would be my pleasure," he agreed, only the barest hint of a smile flickering across his face. Hermione wondered if even in the eternity she would spend with him if she would ever see a broad smile.

"Thank you," She allowed him to tuck her hand on his elbow and let him escort her down the golden street that had opened up in front of her.

"On the way, perhaps you could explain to me about the ginger-colored, flat-faced, Kneazle that appeared at our home about six months ago. He keeps insisting his name is Crookshanks and that he belongs to my soul mate – surely you never had such an annoying beast?"

Her laughter rang through the pearly gates, bouncing off the ivory buildings, and flowing like nectar over a starving man's soul.

Which is exactly what it was.


End file.
